The original issue can be found at: http://www.baptistpress.com/issue-04/18/2005
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How do Catholics & Baptists differ?
by Lee Weeks
Date: April 18, 2005 - Monday
ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)--As the world observes the election of the first new pope of the Roman Catholic Church in more than 25 years, many Baptists may be thinking through how Catholic beliefs differ from their own.
“The Catholic understanding of God is the same as the Trinitarian view of God held by evangelicals,” said Bill Gordon, an associate with the North American Mission Board’s interfaith evangelism team and author of NAMB’s overview of the faith, Roman Catholicism Belief Bulletin.
“The Jesus of Catholicism is the same Jesus we worship,” continued Gordon, a Southern Baptist authority on Catholicism. “He is the second person of the Holy Trinity, fully God and fully man, who died on the cross and rose again from the dead.”
Gordon said, however, that while Catholics and Southern Baptists alike are ardent defenders of the sanctity of human life and the institution of marriage between one man and one woman, the two groups hold starkly different beliefs about the key doctrine of eternal salvation.
“Catholics will agree that you have to be saved by the grace of God that comes through Jesus Christ,” Gordon said. “Catholicism, however, teaches that one receives God’s grace through the church’s sacraments. Southern Baptists believe, according to Scripture, that we receive God’s grace solely through faith in Jesus Christ, by faith alone.
“Catholics also have a sacramental understanding of how God’s grace is dispensed,” Gordon explained. “To receive the grace of God and eternal salvation, the Catholic Church teaches that you have to receive the sacraments from their church. Southern Baptists believe that the sacraments are contrary to the teaching of the Bible and that grace is received directly from God. We don’t have to go through an intermediary. The church doesn’t control God’s storehouse of grace. We receive all the grace we need directly from God when we believe in Jesus Christ.”
Gordon said the Catholic Church also distinguishes between the seriousness of various sins. Murder, adultery, stealing and lying are called mortal sins which must be confessed to a priest in order to receive forgiveness. Other less serious sins, known as venial sins, according to Catholicism, can be atoned for after death in a place called purgatory.
According to the Bible, all sins are serious, and any sin will condemn a person to hell apart from the grace of God which comes from faith in Jesus Christ, Gordon said.
“Traditionally, Catholics have interpreted purgatory as a place of punishment where a person is purified.” Gordon said. “According to Catholic theology, everyone in purgatory will eventually be purified of the taint of sin and make it into heaven.”
Mike Licona, director of NAMB’s interfaith evangelism team, said the Apostle Paul’s teaching in Philippians that “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord,” contradicts the Catholic concept of purgatory.
“Christ’s atoning sacrifice covers all our sins -- past, present and future,” Licona said.
Gordon said the differences in beliefs about eternal salvation between Southern Baptists and Catholics can be attributed in large part to each denomination’s view of Scripture.
Catholicism holds that its traditions are equal in authority with the teachings of Scripture. For Southern Baptists, the Bible is the sole spiritual authority.
“I do believe that it’s possible for Roman Catholics to be genuinely saved in spite of what their church teaches,” Gordon added. “It’s faith in Jesus Christ that saves, not membership in a church or denomination. Salvation is not determined by church membership. Salvation is determined by personal faith in Jesus Christ.”
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For more information about the differences between Catholicism and Southern Baptist beliefs, visit www.4truth.net and download for free the Roman Catholicism Belief Bulletin.
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LIFE DIGEST: NIH officials oppose Bush on stem cells; mother arrested trying to stop teen’s abortion; pro-life plates upheld
by Tom Strode
Date: April 18, 2005 - Monday
WASHINGTON (BP)--President Bush and other foes of federal funding of destructive embryonic stem cell research found a lack of allies among officials in the president’s own administration during a recent congressional hearing.
Various directors at the National Institutes of Health expressed before a Senate committee their frustration with the Bush policy, which bars federal funds for research on stem cells that result in the destruction of human embryos. The rule permits funding for such research only on stem cell lines already in existence prior to Aug. 9, 2001, when the president announced the policy.
The testimony, presented to a subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee without supervision from the Department of Health and Human Services at the request of Sen. Arlen Specter, R.-Pa., warned researchers might move to countries where there are more lenient rules and abundant funding, The Washington Post reported.
“Progress has been delayed by the limited number of cell lines,” said Elizabeth Nabel, new director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, in written testimony, according to The Post. “The NIH has ceded leadership in this field.”
Duane Alexander, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, cited “cumbersome procedures and long waiting times” for legal stem cells, which frequently are inferior and expire when thawed, The Post reported.
The negative testimony regarding Bush’s policy came April 6, about two weeks after it was revealed the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives has promised a vote on legislation designed to liberalize the rule.
Rep. Michael Castle, R.-Del., is sponsoring the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act, H.R. 810, while Specter is the sponsor of the Senate version, S. 471. The House has 193 cosponsors, signaling it could pass. If the House and Senate agree on the same measure. Bush would have to veto it to prevent it from becoming law.
The Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and other pro-life organizations oppose embryonic stem cell research because procurement of the cells kills the embryo.
Stem cells are the body's master cells that can develop into other cells and tissues, building hope for the treatment of numerous afflictions. In addition to being extracted from embryos, the cells may be found in such non-embryonic sources as bone marrow, umbilical cord blood, fat and placentas.
While embryonic stem cell research has failed to produce any successful therapies in human beings, research on stem cells from non-embryonic sources has produced treatments for more than 40 ailments, including spinal cord injuries, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease.
MOTHER ARRESTED –- An Illinois woman was arrested when she sought to prevent her 14-year-old daughter from having an abortion, according to a published report.
The mother, whose name was not published by The Illinois Leader, went to the Hope Abortion Clinic in Granite City March 17 and found her daughter had signed in on the register. She did not find her daughter in the waiting area and went to the front desk, The Leader reported.
“I was told I could not prove my daughter was there, so I began calling her name,” the mother said. “A medical tech at the clinic told me, ‘It’s your daughter’s rights; it’s her body. You have no rights.’”
When she continued to call out her daughter’s name, the police were called and arrested the mother, according to the report.
The mother of the young man who was the father of the baby posed as the girl’s grandmother in order to take her to the abortion clinic, according to The Leader. When the girl left the clinic, employees told her that no one would ever know she had been there and her records would be buried, the newspaper recounted.
Police reportedly told the girl's mother they could not intervene despite her accusation that her daughter had been raped because the charge was too old, The Leader reported.
Illinois does not have a law requiring parental consent or notification before a minor undergoes an abortion.
DEAN ON LIFE –- Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean warned Democrats to halt “speaking down” to voters who oppose abortion and cultural decay only days before saying his party would use the Terri Schiavo case against Republicans in elections.
In an April 13 interview with USA Today, Dean denied Democrats are pro-abortion, saying, “What we want to debate is who gets to choose: [House Majority Leader] Tom DeLay and the federal politicians? Or does a woman get to make up her own mind?”
In an April 15 speech at a West Hollywood, Calif., event sponsored by Access Now for Gay and Lesbian Equality, the former Vermont governor charged Republicans with “grandstanding” in their effort to prevent Schiavo’s feeding tube from being disconnected, according to the Associated Press.
“This is going to be an issue in 2006,” Dean said, the AP reported, “and it’s going to be an issue in 2008, because we’re going to have an ad with a picture of Tom Delay saying, ‘Do you want this guy to decide whether you die or not? Or is that going to be up to your loved ones?’
“The issue is: Are we going to live in a theocracy where the highest powers tell us what to do? Or are we going to be allowed to consult our own high powers when we make very difficult decisions?”
According to the AP, Tracey Schmitt of the Republican National Committee said it was “disturbing that Howard Dean would plot to use the life of Terri Schiavo for political gain. This demonstrates a troubling lack of sensitivity, and one would hope that Democrat leaders in Congress would reject such a strategy.”
Schiavo, 41, died March 31 after being disconnected from a feeding tube 13 days earlier. Despite a law passed by Congress and signed by Bush enabling a federal court to review her case, the judiciary refused to order the reconnection of her tube.
LOUISIANA PLATES OK –- The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a suit by Planned Parenthood and cleared the way for the state of Louisiana to issue pro-life license plates.
The appeals court vacated April 13 a federal judge’s ruling blocking distribution of the “Choose Life” plates and dismissed the suit brought by the country’s leading abortion provider.
“We applaud the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in this case,” Alliance Defense Fund lawyer Mike Johnson said in a written release. “Planned Parenthood and others who promote abortion didn’t like the fact that Louisiana can select a pro-life license plate option, so they attempted to get the federal courts to declare all of Louisiana’s voluntary specialty plates unconstitutional.”
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Dobson: Christians must speak out to break judicial filibuster
by Michael Foust
Date: April 18, 2005 - Monday
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Christians must make their voices heard in the coming days if Senate Republican leaders are to be successful in breaking the filibustering of judicial nominees, Focus on the Family's James Dobson said April 18.
The Senate is expected to vote soon on a controversial rule change that would prevent the filibustering of judges. As of now, a nominee must receive a super-majority of 60 votes to overcome a filibuster -- even if the nominee has the simple majority of 51 votes needed for confirmation. Supporters of the rule change say the filibustering of judges is unconstitutional.
The rule change would take only a simple majority of 51 votes.
"It will not come to pass without a response -- a massive response -- from people of faith and those who hold to conservative views," Dobson said on his radio program.
In many ways, the rule change attempt is a watershed moment for Christian conservatives, who have complained for years about the liberal bent of the judiciary as they watched the courts legalize abortion, ban organized prayer in schools and rule against Ten Commandments displays. They fear a federal court eventually will legalize same-sex "marriage."
The filibuster has allowed liberal senators to block some of President Bush's more conservative nominees. Often, abortion is the dividing issue.
"Unless this effort to end the filibuster ... is passed, then [liberal rulings are] going to continue and we'll still have the same problem we do with the liberal judiciary today," Dobson said.
Hoping to inform and energize Christians for the upcoming political battle, pro-family leaders are holding a "Justice Sunday" rally April 24 at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky. Scheduled speakers include Dobson, Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, Prison Fellowship's Charles Colson and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's R. Albert Mohler Jr. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and retired judge Charles Pickering also are scheduled to speak. Pickering was one of the judges filibustered by Senate Democrats until Bush used a recess appointment to place him on the bench.
The rally is being sponsored by Focus on the Family Action and Family Research Council Action. It begins at 7 p.m. Eastern and will be broadcast to individuals and churches nationwide over the Internet and via satellite. Perkins is encouraging pastors to use their Sunday evening service to watch the rally. (Information on how the rally can be viewed is available at www.frc.org).
"This is not something that the evangelical community and churches have paid a lot of attention to," Perkins said of the Senate filibuster. "... If we want to change [judicial rulings], then we've got to stop this blockade to the courts."
Perkins and other pro-family leaders assert that the filibuster has targeted people of faith -- an assertion that Democrats say is not true.
But conservatives point to the Democrats' treatment in 2003 of then-appeals court nominee William Pryor, a Catholic and a staunch pro-lifer. Pryor has called Roe v. Wade "the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law" and said that is has led "to the slaughter of millions of innocent, unborn children. That's my personal belief."
During hearings Democrats consistently criticized his "deeply held beliefs," leading some Republicans to wonder if a Catholic nominee who openly adhered to the church's teachings on abortion could ever win confirmation.
According to National Review Online, at least three Democratic senators criticized Pryor's beliefs:
-- New York's Charles Schumer.
"Based on the comments Attorney General Pryor has made on this subject [abortion], I have got some real concerns that he cannot [judge fairly on abortion-related issues], because he feels these views so deeply and so passionately," Schumer said.
-- Massachusetts' Edward Kennedy: "I think the very legitimate issue in question with your nomination is whether you have an agenda, that many of the positions which you have taken reflect not just an advocacy but a very deeply held view and a philosophy...." Kennedy said.
-- California's Dianne Feinstein: "Virtually in every area you have extraordinarily strong views which continue and come out in a number of different ways," she said. "Your comments about Roe make one believe, could he really, suddenly, move away from those comments and be a judge?"
Those "views," social conservatives argue, are religious beliefs.
"We must break this filibuster against people of faith if we're going to be able to move forward in impacting this culture," Perkins said.
Focus on the Family Action has begun a series of newspaper and radio advertisements, asking people in various states to call their senator and urge a stop to the filibuster.
Nineteen senators are targeted: Arkansas' Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, Maine's Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, Nebraska's Ben Nelson and Chuck Hagel, North Dakota's Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, Indiana's Evan Bayh and Richard Lugar, Florida's Bill Nelson, New Mexico's Jeff Bingaman, South Dakota's Tim Johnson, Louisiana's Mary Landrieu, Virginia's John Warner, Colorado's Ken Salazar, Nevada's Harry Reid, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski and Oregon's Gordon Smith).
Lugar said April 17 that he is leaning toward supporting a rule change. Hagel said he is undecided.
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Rick Warren, at 25-year point, launches global initiative
by Mark Kelly
Date: April 18, 2005 - Monday
ANAHEIM, Calif. (BP)--Thousands of churches around the world will be setting out to eradicate five "giant problems" that oppress billions of people, Rick Warren told a crowd of 30,000 celebrating Saddleback Valley Community Church’s 25th anniversary April 17 at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, Calif.
"Billions of people suffer each day from problems so big no government can solve them," said Warren, Saddleback’s pastor. "The only thing big enough to solve the problems of spiritual emptiness, selfish leadership, poverty, disease and ignorance is the network of millions of churches all around the world."
Saddleback Church celebrated its 25th anniversary by combining the congregation's usual six weekend services into a single gathering at the stadium south of Los Angeles. It was the first time in many years members of the church family had been able to assemble at the same time. The event included greetings to the congregation from President George Bush and evangelist Billy Graham and featured music from Michael W. Smith, Salvador and Tait.
Warren used the occasion to announce his vision of a spiritual awakening that would sweep the world as Christian churches tackle the problems that Jesus Himself confronted during His ministry.
"The Scripture shows us that Jesus shared the Good News, trained leaders, helped the poor, cared for the sick and taught the children," Warren said. "Our P.E.A.C.E. plan will just do the five things Jesus did while He was here on earth."
P.E.A.C.E. is an acronym that stands for "Plant churches, Equip servant leaders, Assist the poor, Care for the sick and Educate the next generation," Warren said. The emphasis calls for church-based small groups to adopt villages where spiritual emptiness, selfish leadership, poverty, disease and ignorance keep people from experiencing the kind of life God wants them to have, he said.
"There are thousands of villages in the world that have no school, no clinic, no business, no government -- but they have a church," Warren said. "What would happen if we could mobilize churches to address those five global giants?"
Warren's "Purpose Driven" movement will be the vehicle for launching such an effort. A combined 23 million copies of his books –- “The Purpose-Driven Church” and “The Purpose-Driven Life” -- have been sold, and more than 400,000 pastors in 162 countries have been trained in the "church health" principles that took Saddleback from seven people to more than 20,000 members in 25 years. Warren’s approach organizes congregations into small groups that focus on the five biblical purposes of the church: worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry and evangelism.
Saddleback's network of 2,600 small groups is starting the movement as each one adopts a village where it will seek to implement the P.E.A.C.E. plan. The congregation, based in Lake Forest, Calif., has been testing the plan over the past 18 months as 4,500 church members have been involved in pilot projects.
The official rollout of P.E.A.C.E. will focus on the small country of Rwanda in eastern Africa, where a million people were killed in a 100-day genocide in 1994. A recent visit to the country convinced Warren that Rwanda had the right qualities for what he called "the first model of national cooperation" between churches and a country's leaders.
Warren said he was impressed with the spiritual depth of Rwandan church leaders who opposed the genocide and have led the people into a "spirit of hope and reconciliation." He also said he believes God wants to begin something new in a small country that the world ignores.
Warren then introduced President Paul Kagame as a "wonderful Christian leader" who has demonstrated his trustworthiness in rebuilding the country.
Kagame praised the P.E.A.C.E. plan as "a vision with a big goal ... but one that also is simple in the strategy it proposes." He announced that 16 leaders of Rwanda's key Christian groups would visit Saddleback in May to discuss the details of launching P.E.A.C.E. in the country.
"Each partner -- church, government, business, education -- has a role to play, and we are more effective when we cooperate," Kagame said. "Rwanda is emerging from a difficult time. Together, we will learn from each other and create a future of P.E.A.C.E."
Warren also introduced Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship, who announced a new partnership that will introduce Warren's Celebrate Recovery programs into prison ministries in 108 countries. The new agreement, signed April 16, also will mobilize congregations for Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree ministry to the children of prisoners and promote Colson's Worldview Studies Program, which helps believers apply Christian values to a wide range of issues in daily life.
"For years, I have been pleading with churches to get out of their comfort zones and turn the world upside down for Christ," Colson said. "Rick Warren has got a plan to do it.
"I have a burden for Christians to get out and do the Gospel," he said. "I'm thrilled to go shoulder to shoulder with Rick and make this happen."
The P.E.A.C.E. plan will be a "revolution" for global Christianity, Warren told the congregation.
"I stand before you confidently right now and say to you that God is going to use you to change the world," Warren said. "Some will say, 'That's impossible,' but I heard that line 25 years ago, and God took seven people and started Saddleback Church. Now we have a new vision and a whole lot more people to start with.
"The great evangelist Dwight L. Moody said, 'The world has yet to see what God can do with a man fully consecrated to him,'" Warren said. "I'm looking at a stadium full of people who are telling God they will do whatever it takes to establish God's Kingdom 'on earth as it is in heaven.'
"What will happen if the followers of Jesus say to Him, 'We are yours'?" Warren asked. "What kind of spiritual awakening will occur?"
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Golden Gate 5-year plan envisions gains in students, faculty
by John C. Eagan
Date: April 18, 2005 - Monday
MILL VALLEY, Calif. (BP)--“We expect God to do miraculous things in our future,” President Jeff Iorg told trustees of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in presenting a five-year plan for expanding and improving the strategic Southern Baptist entity in the U.S. West.
“This report is a preview of what we are asking God to do through Golden Gate in the next five years,” said Iorg, who became the seminary’s seventh president in August 2004.
Trustees responded by endorsing the 2010 Plan during their April 12 meeting at the seminary’s Northern California Campus in Mill Valley.
Iorg said the 2010 Plan focuses on seven strategic objectives:
1. Increase enrollment to 2,500 students total for the seminary’s five campuses, producing 1,100 fulltime equivalents. For the 2003-04 academic year, the seminary counted 1,675 students.
2. Strengthen the strategic programs offered at each campus and prioritize improving the quality of the seminary’s academic program system-wide.
3. Expand delivery systems, including residential students, commuter students, distance learning and online studies.
4. Enhance the faculty by growing to the equivalent of 40 fulltime positions, and improve compensation and housing for faculty. Organize them into five departments or schools: theology, leadership, educational, intercultural studies and music.
5. Reorganize, redeploy or change the staff as needed to accomplish these objectives.
6. Maximize facility resources. The seminary’s five campuses are located in five of the seven largest metropolitan areas in the western United States.
7. Increase financial resources to take fresh responsibility for the seminary’s financial future with anticipation that God will provide for the vision expressed in these strategic objectives.
“Some of this plan may seem impossible,” Iorg said. “You wonder how we can grow this much, change this much, achieve this much or raise this much money. Well, we can do it. In God’s power, we can achieve what seems impossible.
“God wants to do remarkable things through us at Golden Gate. We are already one of the largest seminaries in North America, yet we have so much unrealized potential,” Iorg continued. “We have strategic locations. We have supportive partners. We teach sound doctrine and live the Great Commission. Our faculty is passionate, our staff is willing to work hard, and our students amaze me with their eagerness to change the world.
“So, let’s ask God to do the impossible, do our part to make it happen, and give Him the glory when it does.”
The plan was developed over the past six months, involving seminary staff, faculty, constituents and partners, Iorg said.
In other actions, trustees elected Joe Panter from Arizona as their new chairman and E.W. McCall from California as vice chairman, while re-electing Janie Finlay from Texas as secretary. Outgoing chairman Gary Black, a California trustee, was presented a plaque and a rocking chair for his two years of service as board chairman, which included leading the board in selecting Iorg as the successor to retiring President William O. Crews. Black will continue on the board for two more years.
Also, the trustees’ instruction committee recommended the reinstatement of the doctor of philosophy degree, to be awarded in biblical theology. Pending accreditation approval, the Ph.D. program scheduled to begin in the fall of 2006.
Trustees also approved appointment of Mark Tichenor from dean of student life to vice president of student services. The appointment is intended to give Tichenor a system-wide influence on student life issues facing the seminary’s five campuses.
New Testament professor Richard Melick was approved for a semester sabbatical in spring 2006. He plans to use the time for writing two or three books that are in process with the expectation of completing at least one. Melick also plans to complete his site research on the cities of Paul in Turkey and Greece.
Edsel D. (Eddie) Pate Jr. was named director of Golden Gate’s Southern California Campus. Pate has been associate professor of missions at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in Virginia since July 2004. Previously he was responsible for Southern Baptist mission work in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa with the International Mission Board.
Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary is a Cooperative Program ministry of the Southern Baptist Convention, with campuses in Northern California, Southern California, the Pacific Northwest, Arizona and Colorado.
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Step into God’s story, Giglio urges record crowd at Ministry Lab
by Melanie Lloyd
Date: April 18, 2005 - Monday
FORT WORTH, Texas (BP)--Louie Giglio encouraged an audience of 1,200-plus youth ministers, parents of youth and youth group leaders to step out of their life stories and into God’s story.
Giglio, leader of the national Passion movement among collegians, addressed the opening session of the April 8-9 Youth Ministry Lab, sponsored and hosted by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, for 30 years.
“Paul could’ve been the guy who had it all if not for his radical meeting with God,” said Giglio, drawing from Philippians 3 for his message to the record crowd of participants from 300 churches. “He would’ve been the star of his own small story, but would not be known today.”
The Apostle Paul was instead radically “re-aimed and re-sized by God, and God invited Paul into His story,” Giglio, a graduate of Southwestern Seminary, said. “That invitation is still on the table today for you and me.”
Giglio recently returned from Great Britain where he said an amazing revival is taking place in the lives of men and women. “God is on the move in the world today. We are a part of the Kingdom of God and we are part of something big. God’s going to do something in student ministry in this country and he wants you to be a part of it.”
Too often Christians lose sight of the simplicity of Jesus’ call to lead, Giglio said. “But this generation needs young men and women who actively live out the reality that Jesus is relevant for today ... who can lead them to the power that is in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
He urged Youth Ministry Lab participants to leave their stories behind and join God’s story “because there is stuff He is doing in your town that you don’t even know about and it is huge. God is good and He is on the move.”
Among the lab participants, Robert and Sherry Tavares and their daughter, Amanda, drove from Gallup, N.M. -- a 12-hour, 760-mile trip to Fort Worth.
Robert, youth minister at First Baptist Church in Gallup, enrolled in the conference for student ministers led by Wes Black, professor of student ministry at Southwestern. More than 250 student ministers attended the sessions in which Black shared the latest student ministry research on such topics as what makes an effective youth ministry and how teenagers view religion and spirituality.
“I really enjoyed all of the data shared about youth culture and I think it is going to help me focus my ministry on sharing God’s glory,” Tavares said.
Sherry, meanwhile, was reminded while attending a conference for ministers’ wives that her role in ministry is first to be her husband’s wife and then to support him and his ministry.
“It was very refreshing and encouraging to hear that other people share my same struggles,” she said. “Churches can be hard on the wives of ministers but we are reminded to live the biblical standards that will be an encouragement to our husbands and will help their ministries.”
Fourteen-year-old Amanda Tavares was new to Youth Ministry Lab. She attended a training conference for students preparing for international mission trips. Although the Tavares family served as missionaries abroad for a year, Amanda said she felt the conference would give her new insight into missions for future trips.
“I really enjoyed it and thought the conference was very well put together,” she said. “One important thing I learned is that the Bible didn’t say just once for people to go out into the world and disciple; it says it repeatedly ... [underscoring how] missions is supposed to be done and needs to be done.”
Conferences also were available for parents, youth ministry volunteers, students and those interested in praise bands. Booths also were available with information on colleges, camps, publishers and short-term mission organizations.
“I think there was a lot of variety for everyone....” Robert Tavares said. “I would definitely encourage anyone involved in any aspect of youth ministry to attend.”
Richard Ross, one of the architects of the True Love Waits abstinence campaign and a professor of student ministry at Southwestern, said an intensive pre-conference prayer strategy by the lab’s student organizers was why nearly 500 teenagers and more than 700 adults were in attendance this year.
“Perhaps the largest conference attendance in Southwestern’s history is related to what may have been the most expansive conference prayer strategy in the seminary’s history,” Ross said.
“On two Friday nights the lab committees prayed from 10 p.m. until sunrise the next morning. Twice they prayerwalked the campus, praying over every room and in many cases every chair. For a semester, students have prayed weekly at 7 a.m. for God to come in power during the lab. Virtually everyone who attended was prayed over by those wearing prayer bracelets.”
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Realize the authority you’ve been given, Adrian Rogers says
by Kyle Smith
Date: April 18, 2005 - Monday
WAKE FOREST, N.C. (BP)--Too many Christians live expecting spiritual defeat from the world, the flesh and the devil rather than making use of the authority that is theirs in Jesus Christ, Adrian Rogers said April 12 at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Such defeat is needless once a child of God realizes the greatness of the victory won for believers in Christ and the authority to overcome evil that He gives to believers, said Rogers, who has served as a three-time president of the Southern Baptist Convention and recently retired after 32 years as pastor of the Memphis-area Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn.
Preaching at the Wake Forest, N.C., campus to a packed chapel audience, which included members of the seminary’s board of trustees and board of visitors, Rogers noted the spiritual war believers face every day. Unlike the wars seen in newspapers and on television, this spiritual war pits believers against three sources of opposition: their external foe (the world), their internal foe (the flesh) and their infernal foe (the devil).
“There is a greater battle, an invisible war,” Rogers said. “There is a philosophy of wickedness that you cannot destroy with a bomb or bullets. The only thing that will destroy error is truth, and God has given us weapons of truth.”
Rogers noted that people outside of Christ are still under bondage to sin and blinded by Satan, who has dominion over them. However, the glorious truth for Christians is that just as Kingdom authority to resist the enemy was lost by one man -– Adam -- it has been regained by the second Adam, the God-man, Jesus Christ.
Rogers distinguished the difference between authority and power, reminding listeners that although Satan is more powerful than Christians, they have more authority than he does because they have been given that authority in the name of Jesus. Similarly, he said, although a policeman is not more powerful than a speeding 18-wheeler, he has been vested with the authority to make it stop.
As a result of Christ’s work on their behalf, believers should live differently, realizing that they have been given Christ’s power to overcome, Rogers said.
“Where is our authority today?” Rogers asked. “Authority today is over the world, the flesh and the devil. You need to use the authority God has given to you. So many of us have been so defeated by the devil that we just expect [defeat] to come. Satan has no authority over you. Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.... One of these days we’re going to understand the authority our Father has given us.”
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Olive Baptist Church establishes faculty mission grant at NOBTS
by Gary D. Myers
Date: April 18, 2005 - Monday
NEW ORLEANS (BP)—-Akin to seminary President Chuck Kelley’s belief that missions involvement will enrich the teaching of every professor, a new grant from a Florida church will help send NOBTS faculty members on international mission trips.
Ted Traylor, pastor of Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola, presented the first Jeff Rousseau Seminary Missions Grant check to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary during an April 12 chapel service.
“We try to do this for our staff at Olive, Traylor said. “We know it changes our hearts when we get out on the mission field.” The church, he said, wanted to help offset the cost of mission trips so more NOBTS professors will be able to participate. “It is a joy to come on behalf of Olive Baptist Church to share a gift with New Orleans Seminary,” Traylor said. “This school means a lot to us.”
The grant, named for Olive’s late former pastor, will provide funds for one NOBTS faculty member and spouse to participate in an international missions trip each year. The church started a missionary offering several years ago and the mission committee voted to use a portion of the funds to start the annual grant.
Traylor said the grant honors Rousseau’s passion for missions and reflects the Olive Baptist commitment to mission involvement. Rousseau pastored Olive Baptist Church for 17 years. After leaving in 1971, Rousseau served in South Korea and in Portland, Ore. His last ministry stop was in Salt Lake City where he served as a church planter.
After retiring, Rousseau and his wife, Audrey, returned to Pensacola. Olive Baptist named him pastor emeritus. Rousseau died five years ago.
“Brother Jeff Rousseau was one of the most gracious men and he had a marvelous mind for memorizing Scripture,” Traylor said. “He was a wonderful peoples’ pastor. The people loved him all the days of his life.”
Kelley called Olive Baptist a great church and an important partner for NOBTS. In addition to the missionary grant, the church has hosted the seminary’s Pensacola Extension Center since 2003.
Kelley also commended Olive Baptist for its commitment to missions.
The church gives sacrificially to the mission cause around the world through the Cooperative Program, the Annie Armstrong Offering and the Lottie Moon Offering. The church also prays regularly for missionaries serving here and abroad and sends out mission teams on missions and ministry trips. While Traylor was presenting the grant at NOBTS, a team from Olive Baptist was traveling home from a mission trip to Central Asia. The church also participates in mission partnerships in the United States and around the world. Olive will sponsor a church start in Cleveland, Ohio, in the near future and provides ongoing support for theological training in Brazil, Romania and Russia.
Troy Bush, Olive’s minister of evangelism and missions, was instrumental in the development of NOBTS’ Moscow partnership with the International Mission Board. Through the partnership, which began in 2003, the seminary assists with theological education and church planting. The partnership, which involves both students and faculty members, runs through 2007.
“There is nothing that compares to the experience of being on the mission field,” Kelley said. “We always get to make an impact on the lives of those with whom we share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So many times the deeper impact is made on the lives of those of us who go.”
“Almost every member of our faculty has gone on a mission trip within the past few years, often at personal and financial sacrifices,” said NOBTS Provost Steve Lemke. “The generous gift from Olive Baptist Church will help facilitate even more of these mission trips, particularly in our partnership with the Moscow IMB church planting team.”
Joe Sherrer, associate professor of adult education and chairman of the division of Christian education at NOBTS, has been named as the first recipient of the Rousseau Mission Grant. Sherrer and his wife, Liz, will lead a group of faculty and students to Moscow in May in conjunction with the seminary’s Moscow partnership.
The team will provide training in discipleship for Russian pastors and participate in evangelistic and church planting activities in and around Moscow.
“This gift allows us to guide a group of students to explore missions from a Christian education perspective,” Sherrer said. “I am delighted to have my wife experience missions with me. And, with several women students participating, it will be helpful to have my wife traveling with us.”
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Tragedy derailed her marriage but not her heart for ministry
by David Roach
Date: April 18, 2005 - Monday
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--It was the summer of 2002, and life seemed to be working out perfectly for Andrea Hurdle.
A recent graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi, Hurdle planned to marry her fiancé Kevin Todd in July and travel with him to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he would begin studying in the fall of 2003.
Todd had been diagnosed with a rare form of skin cancer several years earlier, but with regular treatments, doctors expected the Mississippi native to carry out his call to pastoral ministry for many years.
Then tragedy struck three weeks before the wedding as Hurdle and Todd visited relatives in Alabama. Todd went into cardiac arrest due to an undetected heart condition and died after a week in intensive care.
“We were so close to being married that I almost felt like a widow,” Hurdle said. “I knew God had led me to him, and I knew He had led him to me.... But I know that God’s plan is much better than my plan, that He’s in control and He’s sovereign.”
Still, Todd’s death was difficult for her to accept because of his obvious passion to impact lives for the Kingdom of God, Hurdle said, mentioning how his potential was apparent through his work teaching an adult Sunday School class and engaging in personal evangelism.
“A lot of people saw his testimony and faith through [his battle with cancer] because through everything that he had to deal with, he never let it get him down,” she said. “... His faith was just strong, and I think everyone could see that.”
As Hurdle searched for a way to honor Todd, God turned her mind to Southern Seminary.
“I began praying for a way to honor Kevin but to also glorify God and show Kevin’s passion for Christ.” Hurdle said the idea soon came to mind to call Southern Seminary.
After conferring with seminary administrators, Hurdle established the Kevin M. Todd Memorial Scholarship Fund to assist men from Mississippi who are studying for the pastorate at Southern.
“We decided that we were going to start a scholarship fund ... because of all the lives that could be touched,” Hurdle said.
The scholarship was funded by donations from Todd’s friends and family and by proceeds from a series of benefit concerts Hurdle organized. Beginning in 2006 the scholarship will be awarded annually to a student or students from Mississippi studying for the pastorate at Southern Seminary.
Russell D. Moore, Southern’s senior vice president for academic administration and dean of the school of theology, himself a Mississippi native, noted that the scholarship will fuel “the passion of a young pastor who will proclaim to thousands, maybe millions, the Gospel of the Kingdom.”
Hurdle, who now lives in Nashville, Tenn., and works for LifeWay Christian Resources, says dealing with such difficult circumstances enabled her to minister to others experiencing trials.
“My passion right now is to encourage those people who are going through hard times and just let them know that there’s hope,” she said. “But the only way they can find hope is through Jesus Christ and just to put all their trust in Him because He’s the only one that’s going to help them come out of that.”
Hurdle particularly draws comfort from Romans 11:33-36, which speaks of the depth and the riches of God’s plan, she said.
“I think it’s so important right after something happens to you in your life that you just give all the glory to Him,” she said. “He’s going to show you the way and no one else can.”
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FIRST-PERSON: You have the news that people want to hear
by Rick Warren
Date: April 18, 2005 - Monday
LAKE FOREST, Calif. (BP)--Clearly, every Christian is called to go out into the world and bring people into the kingdom. We’re supposed to share what we’ve been given.
But what exactly are we supposed to share?
Here’s your message in two words: Good News.
Mark 16:15 (NLT) tells us to “preach the Good News to everyone, everywhere.”
Do you like to get good news? Everybody does.
Do you like to share good news? Most people do. In the Warren household we compete in who gets to share good news.
I know you’re thinking, “The people I work with, my friends -- they’re not interested in the Good News.” You’re dead wrong! They may not be interested in religion, but they are interested in the Good News. The problem is not that your friends and co-workers aren’t interested. The problem is you have forgotten how good the Good News really is.
Once you’ve been a Christian for a while, you forget how miserable it was to live without hope. You forget what it was like to worry where you would go when you die. You forget what it was like to have guilt and fear and regrets and bitterness and boredom in your life before Christ brought meaning and purpose and significance.
What happens is -- the longer you’re a Christian the more you tend to take for granted how good the Good News really is.
If you go out on the street and ask, “How do you convince God to like you?” 99 percent of the people will say, “You’ve got to work real hard to get God’s approval and you’ve got to be really, really good. You’ve got to keep a lot of rules and you probably have to follow a lot of regulations and do some rituals. You’ve got to be religious. I'm none of those things -- so I'm never going to please God or get to know Him.”
The Good News is that you get right with God through a relationship based just on trusting -- not through a religion of rules, regulations and rituals.
When I trust my life to Jesus Christ I’m given three incredible, fabulous, wonderful benefits. These are the three benefits you need to share with people: He takes care of your past, your present and your future.
-- He forgives your past.
If we were to take everything you’ve ever done or said or thought and make a movie of it and show it on a screen to everybody, you’d be really nervous! And probably embarrassed.
And so would I -- because none of us bat 1,000. Nobody’s perfect. Everybody's made mistakes. Everyone has skeletons in their closet -- things they wish had never happened. God comes along and says, “When you trust Jesus Christ with your life, I take that movie and I burn it. I take everything you’ve ever done and wipe the slate clean. You get to start over with a brand new life.” Is that good news?
-- He takes care of the present and gives you a purpose for living right now.
You are not an accident. God created you for a purpose. But you’re never going to know God’s purpose for your life until first you get to know God. When you get to know God, you’re going to know who you are. When you figure out God, you’re going to figure out yourself. I meet people all the time saying, “I'm just trying to find myself.” You probably aren’t going to like yourself once you find yourself! They say, “There’s something missing in my life.” God’s missing! You weren’t made to live and go through life just on your own power.
-- He gives you a future.
And that’s a home in heaven. Most people hope they’re going to heaven. But they’re not sure. Most people think if you do more good in your life than bad, maybe God will grade on a curve and say, “OK, you can come in.”
Wrong! It doesn’t work that way. You won’t get into heaven on your own power, because you’re just not good enough. The Bible says that heaven is a perfect place -- free of sorrow, suffering and sin. That means only perfect people get to go there. If he let imperfect people into heaven, it wouldn’t be perfect anymore. And that leaves me out and it leaves you out, too.
There’s only one way you can get into heaven: on somebody else’s ticket. Since none of us are perfect, God came to earth in human form and that form was called Jesus Christ. He lived a life of perfection. He died on the cross, paid for our sin and then went back to heaven. Now you get into heaven on his ticket -- if you trust him.
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23, NIV)
It’s a gift. That means you can’t earn it, you can’t work for it, you can’t own it in any way other than accepting it.
Think about these three things: God says you get to know him just by trusting. If you trust His Son with your life, you get forgiveness for your past, a purpose for living in your present and a home in heaven in the future. Is that Good News? I guess so!
Do you think anybody you know would be interested in that? Of course!
Satan has fooled you. You think that none of your friends or the people you work with are interested in hearing the Good News. You’re dead wrong. The world is hungry for the Good News. They’re looking for it. There’s a great spiritual hunger in our world. I’ve discovered that the Good News keeps sounding better and better because the bad news of the world keeps getting worse and worse.
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Rick Warren is the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., one of America's largest churches. In addition, Warren is author of the New York Times bestseller "The Purpose-Driven Life" and "The Purpose-Driven Church," which was named one of the 100 Christian books that changed the 20th Century. He is also founder of Pastors.com, a global Internet community.